Doc,
This one has me really puzzled. For several years now, my Dad's hair has been steadily receding, until he was left with maybe a 2" or less fringe, and the entire top of his head was bald, or barely wispy. About a month ago, I thought I noticed that there was more of it, and now I'm sure. It's growing back, it's coming in black and fine, and starting to cover the top of his head again.

His history, you may remember, is CHF and diabetes, and he takes Coreg, Altocor, Lisinopril, Glipizide, and Furosemide, along with senior multivitamin, Vitamin E, BetaCarotene, Potassium, Vitamin C, and low-dose aspirin. And he was on Vancomycin for six weeks.

For everything else that he's lost, the fact that he's actually being given something back is pretty cool. What could be the reason for this? Have we somehow stumbled on a cure for baldness?

The main reason for hais loss in men is excessive DHT. As a man ages and if he takes multiple meds that inhibit the production of DHT then hais loss diminishes and may even regrow. I would suspect an illness , age , or combination of meds caused his serum testosterone to drop and thus his DHT. You could confirm this with a serum testosterone level.

Well, the drop in testosterone doesn't sound so positive, but at least there's some compensation.

Thanks for the explanation.

Mine is going the opposite way, less hair on the head and more on my bloody back. I don't like that at all. The hair loss is one thing, but growing on my back?? My doctor told me: "prolonged exposure to testosterone." Great. I'll have less please. Damn and blast.

One solution, stick a fork in your nose and wind it around like a rubberband, it will pull the hair on your back up on your head again. Warning may cause Pain!

Well, thank you for the lovely suggestion, however as tempted as I may be to leap at the chance to employ this elegant solution, I'll try other, umm, less stressful resolutions first. Don't want to be messing with my beezer as it is rather a decent size to start with now. No use have a big honker to add to my problems.

Maybe you just need to find a way to, um, expel, more testoterone, then?

TMI - for the love of Gawd: TMI!!!

Thank God he didn't get totally honest and talk about his hairy palms...